Parental Advisory
I’m struggling right now. I’m feeling disappointment. I’m a father. My first born son just turned 18 and, well, lets just say that I’m struggling with accepting where he’s headed right now. I’m feeling all sorts of feels about it. I’m going through all sorts of ups and downs about what to do or better yet what to not do. What to say to him and what to keep to myself. What role should I play in his life right now? What is my job? And mostly, how do I keep from letting his choices make me feel, well, the way I’m feeling.
Parenting is crazy. It’s an annoying, frustrating thing. You’re given these kids to love and care for. You’re asked to do everything in your power to set them up well for life. You do the best you can. Try to make sure they have all the ingredients they need to be successful in life. And then sometimes you open the oven and pull out the cake you’ve been baking for 18 years and its collapsed. No real way to fix it. You don’t get to taste it. Don’t get to show it off on IG. Its just a mess. And you think, well what was the point? I could’ve not tried at all and still produced this. I could’ve dropped the ingredients off in front of a crack house and they coulda produced this.
When I was teaching I realized quickly that people are either built for that life or they’re not. It’s apparent because in teaching, you know exactly what you’re going to get on the back end. What I mean is that for teachers there’s no bonus pay for being good at your job. You don’t get a nice raise based on a positive performance review. There’s no promotion from entry level teacher to experienced teacher. The closest you get to that is being tenured if you’re a professor, or moving to administration but that usually comes after spending your own money to get another degree. In teaching, the financial rewards simply aren’t there in the same way. No, for teachers, the reward is the job itself. The true, natural born teachers take joy in a job well done. Their student’s success drives them. A job well done drives them. Well parenting is the same. But we don’t even get paid.
We spend our time, energy and effort raising these kids. We give them all of our resources. We give them resources we don’t have. We go broke for them. We stress out for them. And the only reward at the end of it all is seeing them do well. Live a good life and achieve their goals and hopes and dreams. For me and maybe many fathers, its about them being solid, productive members of society. So when you’re standing at the precipice of adulthood with them, and you don’t see much light at the end of the tunnel, it’s harrowing! When you’ve given and given and given, and it feels like its all just been a waste? Well what then? I guess I have to let it go.
I look at my son and I have to let it go. I have to take satisfaction in a job that I can’t say was ‘well done’, but at least one that was done with effort. I tried. Maybe I tried and failed, but I tried. And the truth is that as parents, we only have so much control. How many siblings grow up in the same home and turn out completely different? How many people grew up with no parental guidance or support and turned out to be productive members of society? How many grew up with loving, supportive parents and can’t seem to get it together? Is that me trying to justify my failures? Lying to myself so I can live with it? Definitely a possibility! But I think there’s truth to it. But its hard. Its hard to not look at where your kids are and take it as a direct reflection of yourself. Of your failures. As a man can I have peace if my family is in disarray? I don’t know if I can. But I do know this: I can’t attach my happiness to my kids. I can’t attach my happiness to my wife. I can’t attach it to anything external. It has to come from within. And ultimately isn’t that always the lesson? We can do the absolute best we can, but it may not be enough. Your relationships may fail. Your friends may let you down. You may lose the people you love. Your kids may resent you and struggle. The win has to come from the effort. From putting your head down at night and knowing that while you weren’t perfect, you tried. You stayed in the game. You kept the fight going. Because nothing else is guaranteed. So yea. Parenting is hard. Kids are frustrating. But I can’t quit. I won’t get a prize. I won’t be rewarded with anything tangible. I have more heartache and headaches ahead of me. But my satisfaction will be the effort. I will continue to work to help, support and guide those I love. That’s all I can do.
